Cupping Empty Dreams in Your Hands
by Illusn
Summary: An attack in the Phic Phight, using CeruleanShade's prompt: "Danny realizes that the more he uses his ghost powers the less human he becomes." Danny is scared by the implications of his growing ghostly qualities and confides in his mother late at night, seeking acceptance.


The plastic stars plastered across the ceiling of Danny's bedroom in a rough depiction of the constellations glowed dimly down at him, outshone by the aura surrounding the boy as he floated a foot above his bed. It really hurt him to think about the implications of him having ghostly qualities right now. He blew a lock of jet black hair out of his face and dropped onto his mattress, the springs creaking under the impact. Danny glanced at his hand, noticing that the glow had merely dimmed, an unnatural green tint tainting his skin. This was wrong, so wrong!

Thinking back, he couldn't really pinpoint when this had started. His green glow seemed almost like a constant at this point. Had it been there before the accident? The rest of his family didn't have it, so it must have been after the accident, right? He focused and the glow receded into his core, leaving his hands cold and heavy on the sheets - like a corpse. Then it hit him. He was dying! Well, maybe not _dying_, but his ghost half was definitely becoming dominant. Ectoplasm was seeping further and further into his very being with each day that went past, and he couldn't help but worry about what would happen to him it if eventually became all there was about him. But Vlad had been a halfa for twenty long years, and he wasn't full ghost. Was this problem exclusive to Danny? Wait, was this why Vlad was so obsessive and unhinged, and getting worse?

Danny stood and made his way to the bathroom, splashing water in his face, something that would have been more effective at clearing his head if he didn't have an ice core. Damn, he didn't even feel the cold anymore.

He trudged back to his bedroom, toes dragging along the carpeted landing like a zombie, weighed down by emotional exhaustion. Turning the handle on his bedroom door, the closed door, Danny paused. He didn't recall closing his door. Had he walked right through it without realising?

• • •

Maddie Fenton awoke to a soft sobbing. Taking a glance at her husband, who was sleeping like a baby, she tiptoed down the hall, converging on the source of the sound. A chill poured out from under Danny's door, and she heard his sobs loud and clear, though they also sounded muffled by something, presumably either his duvet or pillow. Danny was odd like that, sometimes he could be almost silent yet you'd hear every word he said crystal clear, like he somehow willed the sound across the distance. And this, this was a cry for help if she ever heard it.

"Danny, sweetie?" she enquired, pushing open the door, the metal of the handle sticking with frost to her fingers. Soul freezing waves came from the shaking shape on the bed, making her hairs stand on end. Maddie had half a mind to run away and grab an ectogun, but something in the back of her mind, motherly instincts perhaps, told her this was safe.

"Danny?"

She placed a tentative hand on the ice-covered shoulder of the crying boy in the dim room. He turned to face her, tears frozen to his cheeks.

"What happened? Are you okay?" she whisper-shouted, alarm bells ringing in her skull.

Danny sniffed. "I'm fine, I-"

It had taken him a moment to process his surroundings - the frost cringing to every surface, the terrified expression on his mom's face, but when it finally dawned on him he just sat there with his mouth agape, duvet crumpled around him. His tears started anew, each freezing over the other, creating glacier-like tracks down his sickly green face.

Maddie's thoughts ran faster than a rollercoaster, each crowding her brain in a pounding crescendo. What on earth was happening to her son? Was this the result of ecto-contamination? Was he possessed?

Her thoughts gave way to a hug, enveloping the human icicle that was her son in that instant.

Danny took to the hug gratefully, weeping into her shoulder, the temperature around him slowly rising again. An aura grew around him dimly, something that wouldn't have been noticeable even with a small torch in the room.

As he wiped tears from his cheeks, he sat back, still drily crying. "I guess I owe you an explanation." Danny rubbed the back of his neck, quelling any fears Maddie had about this maybe not being her son - no ghost could imitate his endearing awkwardness.

Naturally Maddie's brain was screaming at her that she did need an explanation, but for some reason she softly told him that he had to do no such thing right now.

"Please don't freak out…" Danny said, not meeting her eyes.

Maddie was already freaking out, but Danny didn't need to know that, so she tried her best to keep her composure.

"I don't think I'm human…" Danny glanced up with pleading eyes, gauging her reaction.

'_No shit Sherlock_' drawled Maddie's inner voice, her eyes flicking around the still partially frozen room and back to her son and the flecks of green in his ice blue eyes.

"What do you mean?"

Danny appeared to be on the verge of tears again. "Do you remember the portal accident?"

She nodded. The lichtenberg scar that marred his skin for the weeks after the incident had left quite an impression on her and her husband, as much as Danny had insisted that it wasn't their fault.

"It kinda turned on with me inside it."

Maddie failed to suppress a gasp. "But that should've killed you. How are you-?" The deathly cold skin of his arm beneath his arm was all the answer she needed. Tears spilled from her eyes despite Danny's desperate attempts to comfort her.

"Please don't cry. I'm fine, I swear," Danny half-heartedly argued, not bothering to fight against her vice-like grip on his boney arms.

"Y-you're a ghost, aren't you? We were wrong all along, weren't we." That last one wasn't a question, a mere statement of guilt, loaded with the implications that she hurt him without realising it.

Danny felt like flying away, but opted instead to curl up against the wall away from her.

"I'm so sorry." Maddie reached out again, only to pass straight through him. The moment was then punctuated by Danny falling halfway into the wall with a small shriek.

On her second attempt, Maddie was able to pull Danny back out of the wall, embracing him close to her while they both wordlessly mourned. She held him out in front of her and said firmly, "It doesn't matter whether you're human or ghost, you're still our son, and your father and I will love you no matter what. Do you understand?"

Danny nodded gratefully, his hands apparently very interesting if the way he was staring at them was any indication.

"I'm not really sure what I am," Danny started. "The ghosts call me a halfa - half human, half ghost. I...I'm not really either.."

Maddie shushed him and rubbed circles on his back. "That's fine too. See, there's no need to cry, you belong here."

Danny took a shuddering breath, the first breath he'd taken for a few minutes. "I think I'm becoming more ghost. I'm scared. I just want to go back to being human."

Yep, that definitely explained why he was glowing a dim green, why his eyes had been getting more and more ectoplasmic spots in the irises, why his ears tapered off at the tips. Hindsight really was 20/20, and they'd all been blind earlier.

"We'll get through this, Danny, okay? Together," Maddie spoke calmly, masking the whirlwind of emotions lodged in her throat. "But now, you need to sleep. We'll talk more in the morning."

"But don't I have school?" Danny was taken aback.

Maddie gave a chuckle. "I think school can wait."

She gave him a peck on the forehead, tucking him under the covers, and left the room. Danny sunk into the waves of unconsciousness as she closed the door, a comfortable reminder that he was at least somewhat human still.


End file.
